Greg Week 11

 This week marks the second week of my second placement. It was also the week before spring break! The students sure did let me know that!

This week I worked on teaching a science lesson. The lesson was on water forms found on the earth. The previous lesson that the teacher and I co-taught was on making a model of the earth. The students were then asked to look at the globe and see that there are two main things o ear, water and land. So this lesson deepened their understanding of this topic by going into the different types of water and the ways it travels and moves. I would say that this relates to standard number 2, Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge. The competent teacher has in-depth understanding of content area knowledge that includes central concepts, methods of inquiry, structures of the disciplines, and content area literacy.  The teacher creates meaningful learning experiences for each student based upon interactions among content area and pedagogical knowledge, and evidence-based practice. Going from the first lesson to the second deepened the understanding of the students of this science topic. I liked this lesson because first off I love science. But I also liked how it was something that was relatable to the students, I was able to bring up lakes and many of the students talked about summer lakes houses or their trips to lake Michigan. This made the topic super relatable to the students and able for them to understand.

Also, this week I was able to attend a response to intervention meeting. This was very interesting. I had never been to a meeting like this, so I was happy to be able to go. Basically, the students there are receiving some kind of intervention are discusses, see what is working, what isn’t working, and if they should continue to receive interventions. I would relate this to standard 9, Professionalism, Leadership, and Advocacy. The competent teacher is an ethical and reflective practitioner who exhibits professionalism; provides leadership in the learning community; and advocates for students, parents or guardians, and the profession. I say this because in these meeting we are being advocates for the student’s education. Some of the people in the meeting do not know the student very well at all and some do. But it is the ones who do know the students well to be a voice for the students.

On to Spring Break!

Greg Week 10

This week was a dramatic shift from my previous placement. Went from having six students to twenty-two. It is just very different, not better not worse but different, and so far, I have really enjoyed getting to know these new students.

This week was mostly just observations and kind of getting to know the students and build a new relationship with them I do not think that I could successfully be an educator for them if I do not know them. I have been focusing on learning names and trying to have a little chat with each of them. I did not get to have to chat with them all or learn all their names, yet! I will get there I feel like I have about 60% of the names down. I would say that this week I have focused on standard number 8, collaborative relationships. The competent teacher builds and maintains collaborative relationships to foster cognitive, linguistic, physical, and social and emotional development.  This teacher works as a team member with professional colleagues, students, parents or guardians, and community members.  I have been trying to build new working relationships with the students on this classroom, and so far, absolutely loving it.

The school that I am in is a one to one school. This means that each student has their own iPad provided by the school that they keep at school. The class uses the iPad pretty sparingly as it is since they are a little bit younger, 2^nd grade. One of the students discovered that they could use to iPad to send a picture to all the other students in the classroom, using “airdrop.” When I discovered what was happening, I told the teacher not knowing if this was something she was allowing. We took this as a time to talk about digital citizenship. I would relate this to standard 4, learning environment. The competent teacher structures a safe and healthy learning environment that facilitates cultural and linguistic responsiveness, emotional well-being, self-efficacy, positive social interaction, mutual respect, active engagement, academic risk-taking, self-motivation, and personal goal-setting. The students claimed they did not know where these were coming from. So, the teacher and I decided that we would talk about how on the net just like in person you should never accept things or anything from a stranger. That if something on the internet doesn’t feel right then you should not do it. It was found out, and we knew, which student was doing it of course so there never was any fear of strangers sending messages. But it was a good learning opportunity to discuss digital citizenship and internet safety.

What a successful first week at my new placement!

Greg Week 9

The final week! This was my last week at my first placement at a special education school. It was such a wonderful experience and I know that I will defiantly always remember what I learned from this placement. This week I did a lot of observations. I would relate my observations to stand number 2 Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge. The competent teacher has in-depth understanding of content area knowledge that includes central concepts, methods of inquiry, structures of the disciplines, and content area literacy.  The teacher creates meaningful learning experiences for each student based upon interactions among content area and pedagogical knowledge, and evidence-based practice. This is because I was earning more about being a teacher. I saw different classroom. One room I was in for two days I loved it. The teacher does stations. I had never seen stations done and run so successfully. There were 4 stations fine motor, teacher station, speech, and leisure. I learned a lot about running a successful classroom from this teacher. That is why I feel that I was working toward standard 2, because I am become more competent in my content.

Since this was my last week all I did was observe and on Friday my teacher threw a party in the classroom and the school had a special movie day for a monthly reward. Over all this placement taught me a lot about teacher special ed. I would relate it to standard 1, Teaching Diverse Students. Teaching Diverse Students – The competent teacher understands the diverse characteristics and abilities of each student and how individuals develop and learn within the context of their social, economic, cultural, linguistic, and academic experiences.  The teacher uses these experiences to create instructional opportunities that maximize student learning. Because these student are different from each other in in the classroom even I learned a lot about differentiation specially During one lesson I would have to teacher to each of the 6 students in 4 or even 6 different ways. It was a wonderful experience.

Greg Week 8

This week really flew by. This is pretty much my final week at this school because next week I am going to go around an observe other classrooms. The time has really flown by. Monday was a working day at trinity. Just a lot of reflecting on my time at my placement and writing about it for my edTPA. I cannot wait for my edTPA to be done it will be a huge weight off my shoulder and give me the opportunity to focus more on my new placement coming up on March 11.

Wednesday, I taught a science lesson. I was very excited about this because I like teaching science.  It was aa two-part lesson. The first park was on potential energy. Thursday was going to be the second part on kinetic energy. I really like this topic and it makes me think about standard number 2, Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge. The competent teacher has in-depth understanding of content area knowledge that includes central concepts, methods of inquiry, structures of the disciplines, and content area literacy.  The teacher creates meaningful learning experiences for each student based upon interactions among content area and pedagogical knowledge, and evidence-based practice. I have a god understanding of this science topic because at a former job the students would do a big project about types of energy and as a para, I had to assist many of those students. So being able to teach this content was great because I have a great understanding of it. There was a leveled story with picture supported words talking about the potential energy, the same set up for Thursday’s lesson except on kinetic energy. I introduced the new vocabulary worlds for the unit, since they were new words the students did not do great on their goal of identifying them, but on Thursday there was some improvement. They we would read the story, highlight vacab words on the smartboard, stop and answer the 5 comprehension questions. The student who’s IEP goal is to answer three detail questions from a story did fantastic! I was super impressed with the progress that she has been making. The final thing I did with them for the lesson was a little activity, it differed slightly from Wednesday to Thursday. To show the potential energy I had a car sitting on top of a hill (ramp). I went to each student and talk about how it has energy that isn’t being used yet. Then the next day I did the same thing but had them push the car down the hill and talk about his it used its potential energy and turned it into kinetic energy.

In my lessons on Wednesday and Thursday I would say I did lot with standard 5, instructional delivery. The competent teacher differentiates instruction by using a variety of strategies that support critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, and continuous growth and learning.  This teacher understands that the classroom is a dynamic environment requiring ongoing modification of instruction to enhance learning for each student. I used vocabulary, questions, a story and a small activity to do this lesson> my teacher complemented me on how interactive and relaxed of a lesson it was. She also like that I used a variety of activities for one lesson to keep the kids engaged, check for understanding, and teach them of a new subject.

What a great week, next week is my last week at this placement!